Deep Dive into The Doctrine of Original Sin by Jonathan Edwards - Concerning the Kind of Death, Threatened to Our First Parents, if They Should Eat of the Forbidden Fruit

Misery is understood primarily as a state standing in direct opposition to happiness, particularly the perfect state of happiness Adam enjoyed at creation. Edwards utilized this conceptual opposition to argue against a restrictive reading of the "death" threatened in Genesis, which was advocated by Dr. T.

Dr. T.'s initial view of death was narrow, defining it strictly as the "losing of life" or the loss of the physical existence God gave Adam. He insisted that anything beyond this, such as eternal punishment, was pure conjecture. Conversely, Edwards argued that because death is opposed to life, and Adam’s original life was a truly happy life characterized by perfect righteousness and the favor of his Maker, the opposing state must be perfect, perpetual, and hopeless misery under the divine curse.

Edwards stressed that misery is not simply the absence or loss of happiness; such a conclusion would be flawed, just as concluding that sorrow means only the loss of joy. Instead, misery is a condition of total, confirmed wickedness and sensible, hopeless ruin that directly contrasts with a blessed, happy existence.

This interpretation aligns with Edwards's overall position that the death threatened to Adam was eternal death, which is the proper wages of sin. This meaning is also supported by the dual signification in ancient Hebrew, where the word translated as "death" properly signifies both physical destruction and this ultimate state of perfect misery.

Furthermore, Edwards notes that Dr. T. himself affirms that "death," when discussed throughout the rest of Scripture (including the Law of Moses and the writings of Paul and James), consistently means eternal death or the second death—a final spiritual consequence "widely different from the death we now die," which Dr. T. often refers to as eternal destruction. Thus, the state of perfect misery is the necessary counterpart to the happiness Adam lost and the eternal life he failed to gain.

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